Friday, August 16, 2013

Cloudy With a Chance of Another Lawsuit

A veteran meteorologist has filed a discrimination lawsuit against KABC-TV, alleging the Los Angeles TV station did not consider him for a position because it wanted to hire a young, attractive woman for the job.

According to a lawsuit Kyle Hunter filed Wednesday, Aug. 14, in Los Angeles Superior Court, Hunter applied for the job of weekend meteorologist in June 2011, but was never interviewed for the job. He alleges "multiple qualified persons age 40 and over" applied for the position, but they were also not interviewed.

The suit describes Hunter as a meteorologist with 25 years of experience, with both a bachelor's and master's degree in meteorology, and a third bachelor's degree in political science with an emphasis on earth and space sciences from UCLA. It says he worked as a broadcaster in Los Angeles and San Diego.

A Los Angeles weatherman has filed a lawsuit claiming he was passed over for jobs at two prominent stations because he wasn't a young, good-looking woman.

Kyle Hunter, who has worked as a meteorologist in various southern California markets during a 23-year career, filed an employment discrimination lawsuit against CBS Broadcasting and its owned-and-operated Los Angeles stations KCBS and KCAL on Thursday. He's represented by Gloria Allred.

Hunter alleges "that within the past few years, KCAL and KCBS decided to hire young attractive women as weathercasters in prime time rather than men in order to induce more men to watch their prime time newscasts," according to the suit. That means there was no place for Hunter, an over-40 male meteorologist with impeccable credentials, he says.

Hunter seems perfectly fine in his demo reel, but no better or worse than hundreds of other meteorologists across the country. L.A. is a competitive market. I'm surprised he'd be so willing to torch his chances in the No. 2 market by filing these lawsuits. (By the way, I'm a bit taken aback by his headshot. Is it photoshopped? Sure seems that way.)